


With You Till The End

by Vera (ImJustVerable)



Category: Aphmau My Inner Demons, aphmau - Fandom
Genre: Ava has a nightmare, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Noi is a sweet boy who just wants her to be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28919205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImJustVerable/pseuds/Vera
Summary: The weight of the Daemos' eventual departure has been particularly heavy as of late, and Ava finds it chipping away at her psyche even in her sleep. Luckily Noi is here to save the day...or, night.
Relationships: Ava - Relationship, Ava/Noi
Kudos: 2





	With You Till The End

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Working on getting these fics moved from my MID blog on Tumblr to AO3, and in the future I'll be posting them in both places in case someone prefers one format over the other. Plus there aren't a lot of MID fics out there, so if I can get them out to someone on the hunt, then I'll have done my job as an author <3

“We’re leaving today.”

**_Crash_ **

“...what?”

Ava’s voice comes out as barely more than a breath, feeling as though she’s just been full-force punched in the stomach. Something inside her twists sharply and tightens. No way. She couldn’t have heard that right-

“We have to leave.” Rhys’ voice repeats behind her, sounding almost...annoyed. Annoyed? Why would he be annoyed? What had she done wrong?

“But-” She presses the heels of her hands into her already watering eyes. The words she’s looking for drift aimlessly in her head. Everything sounds like she’s hearing it from underwater, the violent rhythm of her heart becoming crashing waves that shake her to her core. “-but the magic crisis...and I thought...thought-”

“You thought we’d sit around here any longer than we absolutely had to? Please,” It’s Leif’s voice now. Through clouded eyes, she can see him leering at her, “the crisis is over. There’s nothing else  _ for _ us here.”

“As Leif said.” Asch now. “I have a kingdom to return to. There’s no point in toying around here any longer.”

“I-” Her throat seems to constrict to the point where she can hardly breath. She’s taking in air too hard, too fast. The world in her peripheral seems to darken. At first, she wonders if she’s going to faint again. But it isn’t a trick of the mind- around them, the world honestly and truly disappears, leaving them all stranded in an open and black void. And yet, they don’t react. The boys... _ her _ boys. They only stand there, staring at her. Under the pressure of their combined gaze, she fumbles, “Can’t you just...please, I don’t…….Pierce?”

The heavy frame of the somber man shifts towards her slightly, but he doesn’t even grace her with a glance. 

“...Noi…?”

He, at least, looks at her. But she almost immediately wishes he hadn’t, because all she finds in his eyes is pity. 

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be Princess Ava.” Rhys once again takes over, watching her with an eyebrow raised, “You didn’t actually think we would stay here forever did you? We  _ do _ have our own lives to return to.”

“Please...I’m sorry, but please- please don’t go!” She cries out.

But her words fall on deaf ears. Already they’ve turned away, taking their first steps deeper into the empty expanse. Beginning to leave her. Beginning to disappear forever.

“ _ No-! Wait!”  _ She tries to call out to them. Tries to convince them to turn back. But all of a sudden, she can’t. It’s as if all the air has been sucked from her lungs. All that she can force out is a desperate heaving as she sprints after them, screaming muted pleas. “ _ I don’t want to be alone again!” _

Running in a swimming pool. That’s what Ava is reminded of as she’s putting all of her force into growing even a step closer to their receding figures. Her feet slip against the ground as if there is no friction at all. In fact, she realizes, she not only isn’t moving forward; in actuality, she’s being dragged back. A cold, unbreakable force seems to wrap itself around her entire body. It draws her farther and farther into now rippling floor, and panic seems to emanate from her very soul, warping the air around her. Still, she can’t seem to tear hear eyes away from the small specks in the distance that were once her only company- no, her only  _ friends _ . In her distress, it takes her a moment to hear the sound of someone calling her name. 

“Ava..? Ava. Ava!” It seems to echo from every direction of the inky blackness. She sucks in a breath to beg for help, but the quicksand beast has already swallowed her up to her ears. The voice calls again, its alarm seeming to mimic her own, “Ava! Ava wake up!”

Another moment passes and then...she does. 

Ava wakes up to her dark, October night-chilled room, opening her eyes to find the familiar white ceiling staring back at her. Through instinct alone she sucks in a rapid breath of the stale air. Her fingers ache, and, upon realizing that she has been clawing deep into the mattress, she relaxes them, embracing the pins and needles that shoot along their tips as the blood flow returns. Something tickles down along her cheeks, and it doesn’t take her long to work out that it's the same hot and salty tears she’d been shedding in her dream. Not dream. Nightmare. A single hiccup escapes her before she can regain control over her emotions. And when she finally does, she pushes herself up with nothing more than a sigh. 

“ _ Another one _ .  _ This is happening way too often to be healthy. _ ” 

“...Ava?”

A gentle voice falling out from the space beside her causes Ava to jump and gasp. She turns her head towards a silhouetted figure next to her, rose pink eyes squinting as her vision adjusts to the lightless room. Eventually, she’s able to make out a figure whose general presence allows her a wave of reassurance. She breathes out softly.

“Oh, it’s you Noi.”

As she says it, the curtains are drifted apart by a draft, and for just a brief moment a bit of moonlight is able to creep in and catch on the Daemos’ horns. They light up into a faint, watery orange glow; one that remains for several beats even after the light is gone, dimming like a dying ember. Still sifting through the haze of sleep, Ava finds herself spacing out, staring at them with consideration.

Noi, with his enhanced vision in the dark, takes full notice of her line of focus, and feels his face heat up in the way that has become so familiar to him as of late. 

“U-uhm...Princess Ava? Are you alright?”

“Hm? Oh! I-I uh-!” Blinking and snapping back to reality, the ravenette, in realizing what she’d done, suddenly becomes invested in a loose piece of fuzz, “S-sorry. I’m okay.”

“But-”

“Really Noi, I’m fine!” She flinches as she cuts him off.  _ As if that wasn’t the most telling reaction ever. _ Still, she tries to show him a reassuring grin, hoping to throw him off the subject, “Hey uh, not to be rude, but why are you even in my room? Were you watching me sleep or something?

The throws in a small chuckle for effect at the end, but from what facial features she can make out- and the poorly muffled gasp that escapes him- she’d pretty much hit the mark. Part of her says she should be angry, but beneath the cover of darkness she really can’t help but to give in to the small twitch at the edge of her lips. She’d be lying if she said that she doesn't appreciate the boys checking in on her. 

“I’m sorry!” Noi squeaks out nervously, “I didn’t mean to go against your orders, I just like to-to make sure you’re alright sometimes, and I just h-happened to be in here when you started talking in while you were sleeping, and-and at first I was just going to leave, but then…” Here, his flow of words seems to begin failing him. Ava tilts her head in a silent encouragement. After a few seconds, he continues, albeit much more composed than before, “...then you started crying. I didn’t really know what to do...the tee-vee mentor says that humans cry when they are sad, and I don’t...I didn’t want you to be sad. I thought maybe if I woke you up…”

As Noi trails off for a final time, Ava feels something in her chest wrench. He’d been worried about her. He’s  _ still _ worried. 

“ _ Of course he is. He’s Noi. He worries more than all of the others combined it seems _ .”

And yet she can’t seem to find anything to say that might help ease his fretting. How do you explain a nightmare to someone who believes that dreams themselves are merely a source of magic? And even more so than that, how could she possibly admit what said nightmare was about? She won’t do it. She won’t tell him something that would certainly either drive him away or guilt him into staying. It just wouldn’t be fair. And yet, isn’t it even more unfair to leave him wondering? To look him in the eyes and lie after he was so kind?

Ava just doesn’t know. 

And as an unintentional result of her inner conflict, she ends up just sitting there, silent and unreadable. Once again, she’d spaced out staring at Noi. The poor daemos fidgets under her silent scrutiny, watching as- unnoticed by Ava- her brows furrow together in deep thought. He immediately assumes that she’s going to kill him, and currently she’s only deciding on how. Why else would she seem so conflicted? But to his slowly settled confusion, she never says a word. Never even responds. Now it's his turn to frown.

“Do you...want me to leave?” He asks timidly. 

The mild echo of her passed horror is enough to shock her out of her struck-stupid state. Panic strikes like a hot iron, and her hand jerks forward on the bed sheet, not quite making a grab for his wrist, but landing very close to where his own lies. A far to loudly yelped “No!” escapes her before she can quiet it. Her own voice seems to bounce violently off the walls of the room. Before it even fades, her cheeks flare up, and she wishes she could just curl up and pass out right then.

“N-no.” She repeats in a much weaker tone, “Please don’t...I mean, y-you don’t have to. If-If you want to y-you can of course!” Her own nervous laugh here makes her wince,”Bu-but uhm, I was just-I mean-ugh, sorry. I was just thinking about...things.”

“What kind of things?”

“ _ Dammit! Why would I say that? _ ” 

“Oh, uh-uh...well it was uhm…” She gives an unconvincing cough, buying herself a few precious moments to concoct a lead-away. “You said earlier that you heard me talking in my sleep right?”

“Hm, oh yeah?”

“W-what did you hear me say?”

Perfect. That should be enough to keep him nearby for a little while. Tension eases from her body as he seems to settle back again into his place next to her. And perhaps her mind and the night is playing tricks on her, but Ava could swear that he’d come back just a little bit closer than he had been before. At the very least, she now is much more aware of the mere foots length of distance between them. 

“Well…” He starts, facing down at the bed with careful thoughtfulness, “I really couldn’t make out much. A lot of what I heard was just you yelling the same few words over and over again.”

“And those words were..?”

Now his eyes come to her, gleaming with worry.

“No.”

“No?”

“That was most of it.  _ No _ and  _ please wait. _ And you...you said the others’ names a couple of times, but a lot of the time you were calling out for me. At first you just sounded really scared. But then you started crying and I felt really sad for some reason. So that’s why I…”

“...why you woke me up.”

He nods. Both human and daemos seem to slip into a momentary loss of words as an air of unspoken emotions surrounds them. Noi never once releases Ava’s gaze, causing any sense of proper thought she might have had fizzle out like a sparkler dipped in water. He clearly wants an explanation. Even more so, he  _ deserves _ one. But she still can’t bring herself to answer his unspoken question. Would he judge her? Surely not...surely empathetic Noi would at least feign understanding.

Wouldn’t he?

“I’m sorry.” She ends up whispering lamely. 

She fully expects him to try and leave again. And she’s sure that, despite her fears, she’ll let him go this time. Forcing him to stay again would only be cruel- especially considering he doesn’t even know why he’s here now.

What she certainly  _ doesn’t _ expect is the feeling of his warm and gentle hand coming to lay atop her own. As he links their fingers together, Ava can imagine her face being the physical portrayal of an error screen, and she gives a mild squeak. 

“I don’t like it when you cry Ava.”

Whether it was his intention or not, with that one sentence he manages to completely shatter the emotional dam.

A hard lump forms in Ava’s throat that becomes impossible to swallow away, and it gives way to the hiccups that begin bubbling their way to the surface. Those same tears from before- which had sat poised at the corners of her eyes for some time now- now spill over in fast-falling drops. They trace paths down her cheeks and paint her lips with their salty taste. Before she can even comprehend what she’s done, Ava has fallen those few meager inches forward into Noi, who uses one hand to brace himself up against the mattress as her weight nearly pushes him down. Her arms latch around his neck, and she buries her face into his shoulder. Suddenly, all of her previous terror and sadness and grief is escaping her in heavy sobs. For a few seconds, he’s startled and tense. But then he shifts their combined weight so that- following through with an instinct he never would have guessed he had- he can return her embrace. With one hand, he rubs comforting circles into her back as she gathers her breath for an admission. 

“You all were leaving me.” She says finally, “You- _ hic _ \- you didn’t even look back. You s- _ hic _ -aid there was nothing for you h- _ hic-hi- _ ere. Like I didn’t- _ hic _ -didn’t mean anything to you, and I just…” She pauses through a series of shuddering breaths, “I’m just so scared of being alone again.”

The soothing motion on her back quick halt as she feels him twitch beneath her. Ever so quietly, so far under his breath, he mutters something almost angrily. Something she can’t make out through her whimpers and sore-throated coughs. He moves slowly beneath her, not pushing her away, but instead trying to bring her in closer. And through a bit of shuffling on both of their parts, they eventually end up fitted together like two slightly awkward puzzle pieces. Curled up against Noi, with her head tucked carefully beneath his chin, Ava wraps her arms around her stomach to make it easier for him to envelop her in a strong and protective grasp. To anyone who might have seen them, they would have found him cradling her, almost like one would a child. She- although still sniffling- is now more preoccupied with being overwhelmed by the rapid beating of her own heart and the dizzying heat that spreads over her face than any fear that still simmered within her. It doesn’t stop her from gripping tightly to his shirt; although at this point, neither of them could move away if they wanted to. Not that that’s the case by any means. 

Pressing her cheek to his chest, she can feel his own uneven rhythm.

“You won’t be.” He murmurs determinedly into her ear, awakening goosebumps across her skin, “I promise. I’ll never leave you for as long as I live.”

“But...what about Daemos? Don’t you have to go back soon?” She asks warily.

“You are more important to me than  _ any _ position on Daemos.”

A small part of Ava wants to warn against believing him. But being wrapped up the way she is; hearing the way he speaks that promise-as though he’s swearing this to himself as much as he is her- she can’t help but trust that sort of finality. A powerful, electric sort of feeling blossoms in her chest and spreads across her body, and it takes her a moment to recognize it as love. Pure, unfiltered love. It encompasses every inch of her, inside and out, causing her heart to swell. It overtakes her. It controls her. 

It controls her as she slowly pulls her head back to gaze up into Noi’s amber-lit eyes. Controls her as her fingers unclutch from his shirt and splay out across his pounding chest. Controls her as her hands snake back up around his neck, just as they had been before. Except now, there is no sadness. No fear. No tears. Just love, pushing her on as she tries to bring his face down towards her own. 

And she isn’t the only one it’s driving. 

As Noi gives and brings their foreheads together, he’s nearly shaking with emotion. He’d never felt this much...well, anything before. For anyone. The entire realm of  _ feeling _ had just flown past any possible expectations he could have had. One of his hands comes up to, gingerly...so, so gingerly... trace down her cheek and across her jaw, before coming down to cup her chin. There it lingers, holding her like one might hold a priceless artifact that they’re afraid to break. Meaning drifts between them just as the moon’s rays drift in the space before Earth- in a confident, dancing sort of way.

“Ava…” Noi breathes shakily.

Nose to nose now, they both close their eyes in anticipation. 

“Thank you.”

The words hardly have a breath’s moment to fall from Ava’s lips before she presses them to Noi’s. 

She starts off patiently, giving him plenty of time to move away if he were ever going to. But he doesn’t, which is the best sort of sign she could ever hope to receive. That is until he takes it upon himself to deepen the kiss; or caress, although the human definition of that term is also needed at the moment, so perhaps kiss will do. With the hand under her chin, Noi’s thumb continues to brush against and caress Ava’s skin. The one that had been resting on her back now pushes them more tightly together. If life were a movie, then this would be the scene where small fireworks erupt into the air behind them. 

It has to have only lasted a few seconds, but when Ava falls away the surging feeling in her stomach certainly doesn’t. So close now, she can make out the mystified expression on his face when their eyes open. Briefly, she feels utterly ashamed for letting her emotions get the better of her, and she wishes she could just curl back up into his arms and die. Her eyes drop from his face and fixate on the small line of light sneaking into the room from beneath the curtains. It’s the unique yellow-grey that comes with the first hints of sunrise. Dawn will be here soon enough. 

She figures she should say something...anything really. Her attention flickers back to him, only to find that he still stares at her with the same wonder-struck expression. 

“Noi?” He jerks to attention as she tentatively calls out to him. She recognizes that he’d been lost in his own thoughts, “I’m sorry, I- EEP!”

Instead of finishing her apology, Ava instead ends up giving a startled yelp. Noi, now snapped out of whatever trance he’d been in, has suddenly thrown himself backwards into Ava’s pile of pillows, taking Ava, still held tightly in his arms, down with him. Her eye’s squeeze shut as they fall the short distance into the feathery mess, and when she opens them again the first thing she sees is his beaming expression. Before she can even raise a question, she’s cut off by a sudden onslaught of nuzzles from her most beloved carrot-top, who proceeds to laugh boyishly to himself. Beneath the shower of affection, Ava can feel doubt get high-kicked from her soul and is immediately replaced with a happy sense of amused confusion. Soon, she finds herself unable to fight back her own wave of bubbly giggles. 

“N-Noi!” She chirps between bouts of laughter. After a moment, she’s able to bring his violent snuggling to a pause by once again pressing their foreheads together. Nose scrunched and smiling, she asks, “What are you doing?”

“I’m not sure!” He twitters back, not at all deterred by this fact, “I’m just really happy!”

Ava has to admit that she too is in a pretty fantastic mood at this point. All of her previous frights are impossible to recall when right here, right now, she has Noi. Noi, whose uncontainable joy is coaxing forth all of her favorite feelings. Noi, who even now is trying to cuddle her into oblivion. Noi, who cares for her so much that he woke her up from a nightmare despite the fact that (he believes) it could have gotten him killed- just because he couldn’t stand to see her cry. 

All the love that floods her petite frame makes her wonder how she doesn’t just burst on the spot. 

“You know what?” She finally whispers, planting a quick peck on his cheek, “Me too.”

She feels him give a slight gasp as she steals his lips one more time, just for a moment. And in the next moment, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she’s curled up against his side, her head resting on his shoulder. When he lifts up a hand to comb through her hair, she finds herself sinking into a deep, coddled, and sleepy sort of feeling. She does try to fight it for a few minutes, but in her defense, she hasn’t slept very well tonight, and the fast-pumping adrenaline that had fueled her up until now is beginning to transform. It molds and reshapes itself into something lovely and heavy. Something that weighs down her limbs and drops her focus into a velvety haze. Tucking her chin to her chest, she manages to whisper:

“I love you.”

The last thing she remembers is a kiss being pressed to the top of her head. Then, she allows herself to drift off to sleep under the cover of his faithful watch. 

Had she lasted just a few beats more, she might have heard his reply. 

“I love you too Ava.”

***

_ (Two Hours Later) _

In the earliest part of morning, Noi finds himself still lying half-awake on Ava’s bed, staring down at the sleeping human in his arms. In truth, he’d tried to sneak away not long after she’d falled asleep, simply out of fear for the others finding them in such a compromising position. However, she had been- and still was- clinging so tightly to him that he couldn’t think of a way to do so without waking her. Which was the last thing he wants to do. And, if he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t care much what the others might think of him. In his mind, all of tonight was a far greater achievement than he could ever be brought down from.

Watching her molten dark hair move in slight shifts and falls around her with every slowly rising breath, he’s filled with some feeling. The same strange new feeling he’s been experiencing for the better half of the night. Thinking in Daemos terms, he reasons that there isn’t really a proper word for it. So much more powerful than the human word ‘affection’, and yet not exactly the same as ‘love’. Although, that is certainly present as well, lingering in the background of this nameless emotion.

“ _ Maybe _ ,” he ponders, “ _ it's something I just haven’t learned yet. _ ”

He hopes that to be the case because, he’s decided, he wants to try and understand all the strange sensations he’s been having since he arrived on Earth. They’re far too overwhelming to ignore at this point. And he fully plans to stay true to his word. He won’t leave Ava behind in the end. If that makes him an outcast to his own kind, then so be it. He’ll fight whoever he needs to, if only to stay by her side. 

Because he  _ never _ wants her to feel afraid or alone. Never again.


End file.
